After someone proposed a relatively plausible theory, other netizens began to chime in.
“Yes, they must have obtained IIAS crash data in advance, then adjusted the strength of each vehicle structure in the game to ensure that post-collision results match reality. That’s how they achieved such a high level of reproduction.”
“Maybe if IIAS data becomes inaccurate in the future, Tenda will just crash the cars themselves! (Dog head emoji)”
“Hey, I got excited for nothing. I thought there was some black technology that could perfectly simulate reality.”
“You’re all missing the point. Whether there’s black technology or not isn’t important—what matters is the purpose and significance of ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ doing this!”
The fact that the IIAS crash test results matched those in “Safe and Civilized Driving” so closely surprised many players.
Initially, when many Passat owners questioned the crash results in the game, plenty of players defended it by saying, “Come on, it’s just a game, it can’t be that rigorous. Small changes in game data or minor bugs could cause major deviations in crash results. There’s no need to obsess over it.”
After all, “we have a realistic physics engine” was just a meme, right? Even the most realistic physics engine is still just a physics engine, bound to have unexpected issues.
But now, those who had criticized “Safe and Civilized Driving” were dumbfounded, as were those who had defended the game using excuses like “game mechanics” or “minor bugs.”
Did it need your help to make excuses?
No, it didn’t.
Who said games couldn’t be rigorous? Tenda’s games had always been this rigorous!
Clearly, when developing “Safe and Civilized Driving,” Shangyang Games’ development team had treated vehicle collisions as a core feature, investing significant time and energy to achieve effects very close to reality.
Some players initially thought it might be some kind of black technology that could perfectly recreate reality in the virtual world, but then realized that was impossible—even if they could recreate it, they would still need to know the strength of steel in reality first.
Now it all made sense: “Safe and Civilized Driving” had already established cooperation with IIAS, and the collision effects in the game were based on real-life crash results!
What interested players even more was why “Safe and Civilized Driving” went to such great lengths to do this.
This didn’t seem to be the core enjoyment of the game, did it?
Even if “Safe and Civilized Driving” had done like other racing games, making vehicle damage minimal or simply turning it off completely, players wouldn’t have found it strange—they might have even been happier.
Some suggested that this might be how the producer defined “Safe and Civilized Driving”: realism!
If everything had to be realistic, then vehicle collision results would naturally need to be realistic too.
But this explanation clearly couldn’t convince everyone, and many speculated that this design had other purposes.
In any case, after the IIAS crash results were released, they caused quite a stir online!
The crash video had become a treasured artifact in the automotive section of the AiLiDao website, and memes about the “black luxury sedan” instantly spread across the entire internet.
As various self-media creators and content creators eagerly reposted and reported on this incident, the content related to “Safe and Civilized Driving” became material they enthusiastically discussed, spreading widely across the internet…
…
…
January 22nd, Tuesday.
At the experience store near the “Skylark Project” roller coaster in Thriller Hostel.
“This way, Mr. Xu, please.”
Li Shi warmly escorted a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a somewhat plump figure to the VIP experience hall inside the store.
This gentleman was called Xu Hu, the owner of Hengyuan Driving School.
Hengyuan Driving School was currently the largest chain of driving schools in China. Established in 2005, it began in the capital and had now expanded to major first-tier cities across the country, developing rapidly in recent years.
Of course, there was also a large branch of Hengyuan Driving School in Jingzhou.
Compared to other driving schools, Hengyuan had always pursued a premium operational strategy, promoting concepts like “friendship-style teaching,” “service with a smile,” and “quality first.” They had earned a good reputation through quality differentiated services such as “learn first, pay later” and “one person, one car.”
Of course, in driving schools, due to the varying skill levels and personalities of instructors, and the different driving aptitudes of students, friction between students and instructors was inevitable. The key was whether the driving school could properly coordinate their relationship and gradually reduce these frictions by improving service and teaching quality.
At present, Hengyuan Driving School was doing relatively well compared to other driving schools in China.
Additionally, Hengyuan was one of the first to propose intelligent management. While other small driving schools still had students queuing for practice, Hengyuan had already implemented student allocation and reservation functions through its own app, ensuring that students could practice “one person, one car” individually after making a reservation.
Therefore, Hengyuan Driving School had become quite popular among young people in recent years.
This experience store was the one opened by Che Rong, the owner of Starbird Fitness. It contained various VR equipment for amusement parks and shopping malls, including driving simulators, VR shooting platforms, and more.
After the release of the Safe and Civilized Driving simulator, Che Rong naturally purchased more than a dozen deluxe version simulators right away for visitors to experience.
Since the Skylark Project roller coaster became popular, business at this experience store had been incredibly good!
After all, once visitors got their queue numbers on site, they could wander around. Besides shopping and drinking coffee, visiting the experience store became the top choice for many tourists.
Today, Che Rong already knew that Xu Hu was coming, so he had reserved a private room in the VIP hall to discuss business.
When Xu Hu entered the room, he immediately noticed the deluxe version of the Safe and Civilized Driving simulator.
Xu Hu sat in the G-force seat while Li Shi guided him through the Subject 2 and Subject 3 driving tests in the game.
“Damn!”
“This is way more advanced than the batch of simulators we bought for our driving school!”
“I’ve been scammed! I want a refund! I demand a refund!”
True to his name (Hu means “tiger” in Chinese), Xu Hu spoke very directly.
Last year, Hengyuan Driving School had purchased a batch of driving simulators for all its branches. They were simpler than the large simulators found in amusement parks and shopping malls, but still expensive.
A small screen, paired with the manufacturer’s license exam simulation software, combined with components like a steering wheel and gear shift that resembled a real car, occupying an area of about one square meter.
And this thing retailed for 16,800 yuan, with a wholesale price of 13,800 yuan!
At the time of purchase, Xu Hu thought the wholesale price was quite reasonable.
Because these simulators solved a critical pain point for driving schools.
Hengyuan Driving School’s rapid expansion period coincided with the “driver’s license for everyone” trend. As the number of cars in China grew and the need for automobile transportation increased, the number of people learning to drive also rapidly increased.
For these driving schools, they couldn’t turn away students who came to their doorstep, could they?
That was all cold, hard cash—of course they welcomed everyone!
But with more students came a serious problem: insufficient facilities and cars!
The driving school grounds were only so large, and even if they could open branches or new facilities, they couldn’t be built overnight. Moreover, driving schools generally attracted students from nearby areas, and opening branches didn’t necessarily divert these students—they might want to learn close to home and not travel far.
Many small driving schools completely disregarded their capacity and blindly enrolled students, resulting in overcrowding. Students all queued up waiting for their turn to drive—waiting two hours for just five minutes behind the wheel—leading to widespread complaints and plummeting satisfaction.
To solve this problem, Hengyuan Driving School first developed an app for reservations. After reserving, students could drive for an hour without queuing, which somewhat improved satisfaction.
But the fundamental problem remained unsolved: too many people, too few cars!
Previously, it was queue for two hours, drive for five minutes. Now it was different—sign up for a month and still struggle to get a slot.
Although they switched to app-based registration, reservations still had to be fought over. Weekdays during daytime were manageable, but in the evenings or weekends, reservation slots would instantly turn red, and those with slow fingers couldn’t secure a spot.
So the fundamental problem remained unsolved.
Therefore, Hengyuan Driving School came up with a new solution: purchase simulators!
They mandated that all students must practice on the simulator for at least ten hours before actual vehicle training, mastering tasks like parallel parking and turning on the simulator and passing the simulation software’s tests before getting into a real car.
This diverted the flow of students—new students went to simulators first, then to real cars after passing the simulator phase. For students, although the learning period became longer, the queuing situation greatly improved. With the simulator foundation, they picked up skills faster in real cars, significantly improving overall satisfaction.
Originally, Xu Hu thought these simulators were a good deal, but after seeing the Safe and Civilized Driving simulator, he realized he had been badly swindled.
These weren’t even in the same league!
What garbage were those previously purchased simulators? And they dared to charge 13,000 yuan wholesale?
Look at the configuration of the Safe and Civilized Driving simulator! Direct drive steering wheel, G-force seat, and a game specially developed by Tenda. Both hardware and software experiences completely outclassed the previous simulators.
Yet this one with a G-force seat sold for only 9,999 yuan!
Granted, it didn’t include a display, but it was still a much better deal than the previous simulators.
What kind of terrible display came with the previous simulator? Even 1,000 yuan seemed excessive for it.
So how much had he been overcharged for the previous batch of simulators?
Xu Hu couldn’t help pondering this question, feeling resentment grow on his thinning scalp.